Our Lady of Good Counsel High School (Olney, Md.) is considered one of the top football programs in the nation under head coach Bob Milloy. Since 2007, the Falcons have had an overall won-loss record of 65-7 and have put a number of players in Division I football, including Stefon Diggs (Maryland), Jelani Jenkins (Florida), Blake Countess (Michigan) and Ryan Watson (Purdue).
The 2013 roster for Good Counsel also looks to be loaded with Division I prospects and Notre Dame has begun to recruit the Maryland high school hard. The Irish have already offered the Falcon’s standout offensive lineman Sam Mustipher and has shown a ton of interest in defensive end Jesse Aniebonam, but coach Milloy also has another offensive lineman hoping to make a blip on Notre Dame's radar when he visits South Bend next month and that's Richie Wenzel.
“I love Notre Dame and I have a big Notre Dame family,” claimed Wenzel. “I have two sisters going there right now. My cousins, my uncle and my grandpa went there also, so as you can see we have some family history there. As I grew up, that's who we always watched on television. It was Notre Dame football every Saturday.
“I went there for a camp last summer and I've also been up there for a couple games. It really is a beautiful campus and I really enjoyed my time there.”
The 6-foot-4, 280-pound junior will get another chance to see what the Irish are all about when he shows up to Junior day on March 23rd, but for right now he's just enjoying the ride.
“Recruiting been going really good,” he shared. “I just transferred to Good Counsel last year for the purpose of recruiting and being able to play better football. I've already been talking to a lot of schools and visiting them, so everything’s going very well.
“I have received any offers yet, but I'm hearing from the SEC schools and the local ACC schools like Virginia, North Carolina and Florida State. Those are the ones that have been come in frequently to our school and you can and Vanderbilt to that list to.”
All these offers have been a dream come true for the Good Counsel standout, but he knows to keep his recruiting momentum going forward he has to continue to improve each and every day.
“I try to play explosive, fast and I just love hitting people,” said Wenzel with a laugh. “If I had to choose one thing I like to work on in my game it would be to get to the linebackers quicker. I'm a really good pass blocker and run blocking was a little difficult for me at first because I broke my foot at the beginning the season. I played through the first couple games with a broken foot and it was a little awkward, but I managed to make it through.”
Though his correspondence with the Irish is just getting started, Wenzel is certainly excited about the process going forward and possibly an offer from Notre Dame later on down the road.
“The Notre Dame coaches have been coming into Good Counsel, so I've had a chance to talk to them and I also e-mail them. I'm being recruited by coach (Kerry) Cooks and coach (Scott) Booker and we haven’t really talked about an offer yet, but hopefully at their junior day I'll know more about that.”
